“That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War,” Obama said. “On the contrary, it’s important that Ukraine have good relations with the United States, Russia, and Europe.”…

The following excerpts are taken from “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” by Robert M. Gates 2014. The year was 2007 and Robert Gates, then Secretary of Defense, describes an event that took place at the Munich Security Conference.

The United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) has wrapped up the High-Level Segment portion of its annual meeting in Vienna. The session revealed schisms among countries about future steps on global drug control even as the global drug bureaucrats gave signs of softening in some policy areas, especially around emphasizing public health as opposed to criminalization.

“The Russians have stated that they are intending military exercises,” Rice said at a briefing yesterday in Washington. “Obviously, given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.” …

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: State Attorney General Kathleen Kane has hired one of the most feared litigators in the region, Richard A. Sprague, to represent her in possible defamation suits arising from accounts of her decision to end an undercover investigation that taped at least five Philadelphia Democrats accepting cash or gifts.

The IFO said Pennsylvania could collect less than 1 percent of the value of the production from shale-gas wells during their lifetime. Under the same scenario in neighboring West Virginia, the wells would generate nearly 12 times the tax revenue.

In the newsrooms of this moment, with growing agreement that audiences want information that is true, journalists are coming together around the same basic questions: When is information sufficiently baked to be served up as accurate? Who decides? Should there be rules, or just ideals?

Doing away with the popular horse drawn carriage rides in Central Park is one of the dumbest ideas since Mayor Rick Gray advocated bringing back trolley cars to downtown Lancaster and parking a prototype on a vacant lot.

Ever since arriving in Lancaster almost half a century ago, we have been filled with respect and admiration for the Steinman Family and their generosity and, for many decades, wise leadership of the community.

It is sad and perhaps tragic that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s paramount leader for fourteen years, has his sights fixated on past and presumed current grievances rather than a vision of the changing world and what are Russia’s best interests for the decades to come.

The test called Cologuard scans for traces of tumor DNA, genetic mutations and blood in a stool sample. It detected 92 percent of cancers and 42 percent of advanced precancerous growths, significantly more than an older test that looks only for blood in the stool.